Founding Artistic Director Terrence O'Brien will be stepping down after a 27-year tenure but will stay on to the end of 2013 to direct his adaptation of A Christmas Carol at the Church of St. Mary-in-the-Highlands in Cold Spring on December 6, 7, 13, and 14. Performed by four members of the HVSF Acting Company, Stephen Paul Johnson, Eleanor Handley, Katie Hartke, and Ryan Quinn, the adaptation provides a fresh view of the holiday classic that highlights the warmth and wit of the original text. Performances are followed by a reception with the actors and a holiday feast.

Tickets for A Christmas Carol may be purchased online only. For more information, show times, and to purchase tickets, visit www.hvshakespeare.org.

Tickets for the 2014 season, which will run from June 10 to August 31, will go on sale online early in 2014. The box office will open in May. Gift certificates are available online throughout the year.

For more information call the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival office at 845-809-5750, or visit www.hvshakespeare.org. Additional information about HVSF can be found on Facebook and Twitter.

About the Directors:

Christopher V. Edwards, Associate Artistic Director, is also the Director of the HVSF Education Program. His directing credits at HVSF include The Three Musketeers, Romeo and Juliet, and The Bomb-itty of Errors. Other directing credits include: I Have Before Me A Remarkable Document Given To Me By A Young Lady From Rwanda with Vermont Stage Co.; Shakespeare The Remix with Capital Repertory Theater; Master Harold...and the boys with St. Michael's Playhouse; Macbeth, The Taming of the Shrew, and Love's Obsession with Lincoln Center's "Meet the Artists" program.

Russell Treyz returns to HVSF for his third season. He directed The 39 Steps in 2012 and All's Well That Ends Well in 2013. Other directing credits include Twelfth Night and Hamlet at the Orlando Shakespeare Festival, King John at the Utah Shakespeare Festival, Tartuffe and School for Scandal at the Alabama Shakespeare Festival, The Importance of Being Earnest at the McCarter Theater, and The Front Page at the Merrimack Repertory Theater.

Eric Tucker will be joining this season. Off Broadway he has directed and performed in Saint Joan and, Hamlet for Bedlam, his theater company, which are shortly to be seen in New York. Other credits include Romeo and Juliet, and Twelfth Night at Trinity Rep, and Theresa Rebeck's Bad Dates, Pinter's Mirror, and Women of Will: The Complete Journey by Tina Packer at Shakespeare & Co.

About the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival: For 27 years, HVSF has been the only resident Shakespeare company in the Hudson Valley region. HVSF's productions and education programs reach 75,000 people of all ages each year, and its performances are consistently acclaimed for their spontaneous, spare, freewheeling, and distinctive playing style. HVSF makes its home under a specially designed, open-air theater tent, perched high on the banks of the Hudson River on the grounds of historic Boscobel House and Gardens in Garrison, New York. Using the dramatic views of the Hudson Highlands as near-perfect stage scenery, HVSF presents unparalleled productions in a perfect marriage of theater and nature.